PhillySound: new poetry

Monday, August 08, 2005

Shelley Marlow on Whitman's self review...

I hadn't heard of these reviews by and about Walt Whitman. I like the idea. I would like to read these reviews, and if they are wonderfully written, then good for him. The people that say they are not looking for some kind of attention/communication/success are only trying to break it open for themselves from a different angle. I mean angel, no I really mean a cliquey angle, though I am staggeringly tired.

Once last year I announced I would be singing in a style of Pj Harvey meets Rabbis. In a press announcement Douglas Kelley used these words as if he was saying it or quoting someone other than me. I did nothing to correct this misunderstanding, even when friends said, "That Douglas Kelley really likes you. I read what he wrote about you. Pj Harvey and Rabbis."

As well, someone thought they read about me, when they were reading about the film actress and performance artist, Shelley Mars. They were gone before I got to correct them. I was Shelley Marlow before she was Shelly Mars. When we met at Kate Millet's old loft, we came very close to having a cat fight over our names. But we behaved ourselves in the presence of our elders.

Yesterday, I was visiting Peter Trachtenberg and he acted out a well-known nasty reviewer as Donald Duck throwing an illegible fit, which threw me into a fit of laughter.